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Personal loan keyword ad spend skyrockets, online lenders fuel growth

Source: https://goo.gl/z66LAa

Paid search advertisement spending for personal loan keywords grows by 101 per cent in two years.

AdGooroo, a search marketing intelligence firm, has uncovered niche new evidence that competition within the online consumer lending sector is heating up. Paid-for advertising on personal loan keywords increased by 101 per cent between 2014 and 2016, despite the fact that the number of advertisers came close to halving during that period.

Spending climbed from $14.3m in 2014 to $28.7m in 2016, while the number of advertisers decreased from 2,789 to 1,551. The average cost per click in the consumer loans space increased from $6.27 in 2014 to $8.30 in 2016. These numbers would appear to suggest that the US market – while expanding in terms of output – is contracting in terms serious players.

SoFi, the next generation finance platform which recently announced a fresh $500m funding round, is leading the way. The millennial-focused firm garnered 17.7 per cent of all clicks in the personal loan keyword group from January 1st to February 15th this year. LendingTree, Top10PersonalLoans.com, Discover.com and ConsumerAdvocates.com rounded out the top five.

Shortly behind these, in sixth position, was the recently launched Marcus.com – an online lender that has been spun out of Goldman Sachs. It gained 4.75 per cent of all clicks. Upstart and Lending Club came in in seventh and eighth respectively, with 3.1 per cent and 2.9 per cent of the clicks.

The AdGooroo study, which was exclusively focused on US advertisers, assessed the Google text ad activity of 106 personal loan-related keywords between 2014 and 2016. It also monitored the US Google desktop text ad activity of the personal loan category from January 1st through February 15th this year.

14th February 2018Ryan Weeks

12th February 2018Andy Davis

19th February 2018Ryan Weeks

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